EXTIRPATED, Decomposition & Decay  (2011, Pathologically Explicit Recordings)

The skull:
While we’re pretty hard on computer artists ’round the world here at BDS — due to the many amateurish, hokey ideas they’re attempting to pass off as “art” — sometimes computer-generated cover art does okay. And I suppose this one qualifies as “okay.” You do get a sense of decomposition and decay, the red colors authentically recalling blood and that spine in the lower left corner doing well enough to convey “decay.” The skull itself, well, the guy is not having the best day and it doesn’t look like he’s ever going to recover from this fate. What we seem to be looking at is a human head being stripped of his flesh and blood real quick. Probably by pestilential winds or some shit. I cannot explain the gold dubloon stuck in his left eye, however. It’s all very perplexing.

The music:
Man, it feels like just yesterday I was bitching about the fact that there are three bands who have recently recorded under the name Extirpation. (It was actually two days ago.) Now we have Extirpated from Sweden. Lots of destroyin’ goin’ on under the auspices of fancy words ‘n’ such. But I don’t know if these young Swedes are as much musical geniuses as they are clever wordsmiths. Because this is garbage. Now, taking influence from Dying Fetus isn’t necessarily the worst place you can go for inspiration, but it’s probably not going to result in any originality whatsoever. (The band covers D.F.’s tender “Kill Your Mother, Rape Your Dog” here.) But really, this is exactly like 472 other bands I’ve heard that sound exactly like this. Redundancy incarnate. As with many of these sort of gore/porn death metal albums, it’s mercifully short (22 minutes), but after the lead-off tracks “Captain Syphillis” and “Clit Commander,” the unfunny joke doesn’t get any less unfunny. A total waste of time, and a total waste of okay cover art. “BREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!! BREE BREE BRREEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
— Friar Wagner